Month: March 2016

2. March Storm Home District Blitz extended to support H.R. 4752 (SEDS Act)

By Dale Skran, Chair, NSS Policy Committee

On Wednesday March 16, 2016, Representative Dana Rohrabacher introduced the Space Exploration, Development, and Settlement Act of 2016 (H.R. 4752). This date is the 90th anniversary of the launch of the first liquid fueled rocket in 1926 by Robert Goddard. NSS, working with our partners in the Alliance for Space Development, has been pushing for the SEDS Act starting in January 2015. The introduction of the Bill is an important milestone for NSS and for our future in space.

Now is the time to move things to the next level. Call, write, or email your Representative and urge him or her to co-sponsor H.R. 4752. The message is simple – this is a great Bill, it adds nothing to the budget, and it will give NASA an inspiring and important long term goal. Urge your Representative to contact Tony DeTora, Representative Rohrabacher’s space staffer, to sign on.

With this auspicious event, we have decided to extend the March Storm Home District Blitz in support of H.R. 4752. We have just completed a very successful Washington DC based March Storm event held March 13- 17. This year’s topics are:

Ensure a low-risk gapless transition from ISS to private space stations in LEO, with NASA serving as an early customer (see DRAFT BILL).

Require commercial-style acquisition and development of lunar and asteroid resources to be used in support of future lunar bases and voyages to Mars.

Make space development and settlement part of NASA’s official mission (SEDS Act)

Using the same materials as the DC March Storm, local groups arranged to visit their Congressperson’s home district offices during the March 21-25 recess (or soon thereafter), just like the NSS/SFF 2015 August Home District Blitz. This activity is being extended to support H.R. 4752.

NSS Board of Directors member Peter Garretson is co-author of an article on space solar power in the Montgomery Advertiser, stating:

Being the first to establish Space Solar Power systems will establish who is the “Saudi Arabia of Green Energy.” Space Solar Power is as significant an industrial development as the airplane, the automobile, the locomotive, or the steam ship. It will determine which is the richest and most powerful nation on Earth and beyond.

…Already China is ahead in the only space race that matters—a competition that will decide who writes the rules in the multi-hundred-of-trillions-of-dollars economy that will emerge (yes, you read that right). They have a national program in Space Solar Power. America does not.

…China—the country that built the massive three gorges dam, completed its Shanghai maglev high speed rail in just three years—is planning a hundred kilowatt on-orbit demo just nine years from now, and a hundred megawatt demo five years later.

The Space Exploration, Development, and Settlement Act of 2016 (H.R. 4752) has been introduced by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher “to require the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to investigate and promote the exploration and development of space leading to human settlements beyond Earth, and for other purposes.”

The National Space Society urges you to call or write your Congressional Representative today and request that he or she co-sponsor H.R. 4752 (the Space Exploration, Development, and Settlement Act of 2016). You should specifically ask that the space staffer for your Representative should contact Tony DeTora in Congressman Rohrabacher’s office to become a co-sponsor.

This bill states: “The Congress declares that expanding permanent human presence beyond low-Earth orbit in a way that enables human settlement and a thriving space economy will enhance the general welfare of the United States and requires the Administration to encourage and support the development of permanent space settlements.”

It also provides a definition: “The term ‘space settlement’ means any community of humans living beyond Earth’s atmosphere that is able to economically sustain its population through a neutral or positive balance of trade of goods and services, and is able to expand its habitable real estate as need and desire of the community may warrant and international law permits.”

Dr. Ellen Ochoa is the winner of the Society’s 2016 Space Pioneer Award for Non-Legislative Government Service. This award recognizes Ochoa’s career serving as a professional engineer, a shuttle astronaut, the first hispanic woman in space, and subsequently in very important management positions in NASA, including her current position as the Director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center.

Ellen will accept the award on May 19 at the National Space Society’s 2016 International Space Development Conference® (isdc.nss.org/2016). This will be the 35th ISDC and will be held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the Sheraton Puerto Rico Hotel and Casino. The conference will run from May 18-22, 2016. The public is invited to attend ISDC in order to view the award presentation.

About the Space Pioneer Award

The Space Pioneer Award consists of a silvery pewter Moon globe cast by the Baker Art Foundry in Placerville, California, from a sculpture originally created by Don Davis, the well-known space and astronomical artist. The globe, as shown at left, which represents multiple space mission destinations and goals, sits freely on a brass support with a wooden base and brass plaque, which are created by Michael Hall’s Studio Foundry of Driftwood, TX. NSS has several different categories under which the award is presented each year, starting in 1988. Some of the recent winners of Space Pioneer Awards include Elon Musk, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bigelow, citizen astronaut Anouseh Ansari, Dr. Kip Thorne, and the European Space Agency (ESA) Rosetta mission team.

About Dr. Ellen Ochoa

After receiving a Doctorate in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1985, Dr. Ochoa did research at both Sandia National Laboratories and NASA Ames Research Center. Her achievements include significant engineering work in optics, in information (signal-to-noise) in images, and as Chief of the Intelligent Systems Technology Branch at NASA Ames. She also served as a shuttle astronaut for over a decade, making four flights, from 1993 to 2002. Ochoa then served as Deputy Director and Director of Flight Crew Operations at Johnson Space Center, focusing on the Astronaut Office and Aircraft Operations, and later as Deputy Center Director. Then, on the first day of 2013, Dr. Ochoa became the Director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, a position she currently holds. Johnson has been the focus for human spacecraft operations for most of NASA’s history. Dr. Ochoa’s directorship of JSC will have a significant impact on the future of human spaceflight.

“Lt Gen. Zhang Yulin, deputy chief of the armament development department of the Central Military Commission, suggested that China would next begin to exploit Earth-Moon space for industrial development. The goal would be the construction of space-based solar power satellites that would beam energy back to Earth.”

The entrepreneurial company Blue Origin is the winner of the Society’s 2016 Space Pioneer Award for Science and Engineering. This award recognizes the company’s two recent major achievements: (1) The first successful vertical landing by a large rocket which has reached space and carried a payload (an empty passenger capsule which descended separately by parachute). This flight by the New Shepard vehicle occurred on Nov. 23, 2015 at the company’s test range near the remote West Texas town of Van Horn. (2) Subsequently, the same rocket was flown again and performed a second perfect landing in January 2016, which constitutes the first re-use of a large rocket which has reached space. Creating reusable rockets has been the “holy grail” for many in the space industry for decades, and is a fundamental requirement for spaceflight to be inexpensive enough for general and large scale use.

Mr. Rob Meyerson, the company’s President, will accept the award in the name of Blue Origin on May 22 at the National Space Society’s 2016 International Space Development Conference® (isdc.nss.org/2016). This will be the 35th ISDC and will be held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the Sheraton Puerto Rico Hotel and Casino. The conference will run from May 18-22, 2016. NSS invites the public to attend ISDC and witness this award presentation.

About the Space Pioneer Award

The Space Pioneer Award consists of a silvery pewter Moon globe cast by the Baker Art Foundry in Placerville, California, from a sculpture originally created by Don Davis, the well-known space and astronomical artist. The globe, as shown at left, which represents multiple space mission destinations and goals, sits freely on a brass support with a wooden base and brass plaque, which are created by Michael Hall’s Studio Foundry of Driftwood, TX. NSS has several different categories under which the award is presented each year, starting in 1988. Some of the recent winners of Space Pioneer Awards include Elon Musk, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bigelow, citizen astronaut Anouseh Ansari, Dr. Kip Thorne, and the European Space Agency (ESA) Rosetta mission team.

About Blue Origin and Its Reusable Rocket Development Program

Blue Origin is a privately funded company set up by entrepreneur Jeff Bezos. It designed and built the single stage New Shepard rocket as a means of developing a reusable vehicle and to provide sub-orbital launch services for passengers. The company has about 400 employees at several locations. It intends to build a rocket manufacturing plant near Cape Canaveral in Florida and is developing a new methane and liquid oxygen fueled rocket engine, the BE-4, which will be used to power orbital rockets, including ones of its own design. The company’s name refers to the Blue Planet: Earth, the origin of humanity. It has a headquarters in Kent, Washington, near Seattle.

The National Space Society congratulates the Space Solar Power D3 (SSPD3) team on sweeping the awards in a March 2 multi-departmental competition to find promising new technology ideas that could simultaneously advance diplomacy, defense and development (D3). The SSPD3 team proposal was titled “Carbon-Free Energy for Global Resilience and International Goodwill.”

“Our multi-agency industry team proposal was in the top 1% of ideas picked to present to the very senior panel including the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the D3 Innovation Challenge, a first-of-a-kind contest for ideas sourced from across the Department of Defense, Department of State, and United States Agency for International Development by the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State themselves,” said team member Peter Garretson. “Our idea to start a national Space Solar Power Program won hands down, taking four of seven possible awards,” he said.

Paul Jaffe and Peter Garretson with Awards

Space Solar Power (SSP) is an energy concept where an orbiting satellite gathers energy from sunlight in space and transmits it wirelessly to Earth. SSP can solve our energy and greenhouse gas emissions problems and provide large quantities of energy to each and every person on Earth with very little environmental impact. This was the first time that SSP was briefed at such a high level.

The space solar power D3 team includes members of the Air Force’s Air University, the Naval Research Lab, Northrop Grumman, NASA, the Joint Staff Logistics and Energy Division, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration, the Army, and the Space Development Steering Committee.

“Space Solar Power has made a giant leap forward thanks to Paul Jaffe, Peter Garretson, and the rest of the team,” said Dale Skran, NSS Executive Vice President and Chairman of the NSS Policy Committee, adding, “We at NSS look forward to continuing to promote SSP at the national and international levels.” Space Solar Power is one of the milestones that NSS envisions on the road to a prosperous future where the resources of space come to benefit us on Earth. The NSS Roadmap to Space Settlement (www.nss.org/roadmap ) documents this and other milestones.

Further Resources:

NSS has created the world’s largest online library about SSP at nss.org/ssp.

In 2015 a challenge was issued across the Department of Defense, Department of State, and the US Agency for International Development for the best ideas to advance U.S. diplomacy, defense and development (the 3 D’s of foreign policy). Of 500 ideas submitted, the D3 Space Solar Power D3 multi-agency-industry submission was in the top 1% of ideas chosen to present at the D3 innovation summit. This idea won 4 of the 7 possible awards: the Innovation Award, the People’s Choice Award, the best Interagency Collaboration Award, and also best Presentation. An 11-minute video of the presentation is below.

National Space Society governor Jeff Greason is the winner of the Society’s 2016 Space Pioneer Award for Entrepreneurial Business. This award recognizes Jeff’s successes in founding and helping manage and direct technical work at XCOR and other entrepreneurial space companies. It also recognizes his bold spirit in founding Agile Aero, Inc., a new company that will seek to break through a rapid prototyping barrier that has slowed aerospace development for the last several decades.

Jeff will accept the award on May 21 at the National Space Society’s 2016 International Space Development Conference® (isdc.nss.org/2016). This will be the 35th ISDC and will be held in San Juan, Puerto Rico, at the Sheraton Puerto Rico Hotel and Casino. The conference will run from May 18-22, 2016.

The Space Pioneer Award consists of a silvery pewter Moon globe cast by the Baker Art Foundry in Placerville, California, from a sculpture originally created by Don Davis, the well-known space and astronomical artist. The globe, as shown at left, which represents multiple space mission destinations and goals, sits freely on a brass support with a wooden base and brass plaque, which are created by Michael Hall’s Studio Foundry of Driftwood, TX. NSS has several different categories under which the award is presented each year, starting in 1988. Some of the recent winners of Space Pioneer Awards include Elon Musk, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bigelow, citizen astronaut Anouseh Ansari, Dr. Kip Thorne, and the European Space Agency (ESA) Rosetta mission team.

About Jeff Greason

Jeff Greason sits on the NSS Board of Governors and is a recent co-founder and new CEO of Agile Aero, Inc., a company targeting rapid prototyping capabilities for aerospace vehicles. Jeff’s achievements include being one of the four co-founders of XCOR (where he is also a board member) and leading the engineering team that developed ten different long-life, highly-reusable liquid-fueled rocket engines, a low-cost liquid propellant piston pump, and two manned reusable rocket aircraft – the EZ-Rocket and other similar vehicles. Agile Aero (www.agile.aero), which he recently founded with several other XCOR employees, is intended to help speed up the typically long vehicle development process which strains the finances and resources of many aerospace companies. He expects the results to aid other aerospace companies in making their visions a reality. The company is located in Midland, TX. Jeff was also a member of the President’s Human Space Flight Review (Augustine II) Committee in 2009.